The other members of the expedition were my young family: my lovely wife, Lori, and my son, Charlie, who was about to turn 2 and had recently learned every word. All assembled, we went off to look for California.
It was an early afternoon in July, and the light was the sort they film movies in. We headed north toward Santa Monica on the 405, and immediately Lori and I concluded that this vehicle was quite possibly the greatest thing ever invented, a triumph of design and layout. It had everything, including two full-size beds. Ours was a 1979 model, the last year before the California surfer van got an ugly makeover, and the Germans had the bus well squared away in the nearly three decades it had been on the market. We called ours Hurley because it needed a name and because it looked a lot like the one that character drove on “Lost.’’
The best thing about Hurley, as demonstrated immediately, was that it was the slowest thing on the road. When you cannot pass anyone - and for one whole week of driving, we did not - you experience travel differently.
At Santa Monica, we swooped down slowly on the ramp that leads to Highway 1, the Pacific Coast Highway, one of the great roads of all time. The ocean was close on our left, and we had the general idea we would like to keep it there until San Francisco.
The highway would make that possible a large chunk of the time. The challenge was whether that was possible for a family in a small camper with no reservations in overscheduled America. The bus came with a campground guide filled with reviews that said things like: “Sells out the moment reservations become available in January.’’
Our first night, we pulled into a place in Carpinteria, a campground our guide said was impossible to get into, and were given a spot about 20 yards from the beach. That night I learned that you always ignore the “Campground Full’’ sign.
